Paxos Festival

Giorgos Kontrafouris

Giorgos was born in Athens in 1967. He studied classical piano in the National Conservatory. At the age of 16 he turned his attention to jazz and attended jazz improvisation lessons with Markos Alexiou. He later attended lessons with Jim Beard and Jarmo Savolainen. He took his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Jazz performance from the Sibelius Academy (Finland).

He has cooperated as pianist and organ player with some of the most significant musicians worldwide, like Mark Johnson, Arild Andersen, Marcus Stockhausen, Louisiana Red, Keith Copeland, Andy Sheppard, Ralph Peterson Jr, Bob Brozman, Carla Cook, Alvester Gamett, Stepko Gut, Olivier Gatto, David Liebman, Houston Pearson, Eric Alexander, David Sills, Lou Donaldson, Sam Newsome, Jamie Hadad, Deborah Davies, Beny Golson, Tim Hagans, Bob Shepard, Carmen Lundy, Sheila Jordan, Jukkis Uotila, Wade Mikkola Takis Paterelis, Stratos Vougas Dimos Dimitriadis, Lydia Fylipovic, T. Spasov, A. Pacatius.

He has taught jazz piano and organ at the Ionian University and at Athenaeum Conservatory in Greece, at the Sibelius Akademy in Finland. He has taught in seminars in numerous schools in Greece, Irland, Indonesia and Estonia.